Novel of the week

Missing Fay by Adam Thorpe Jonathan Cape 336pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99

Adam Thorpe’s 1992 debut Ulverton, about a fictional English village, was a “virtuoso” novel that “caught the public imagination”, said David Grylls in The Sunday Times. Nothing Thorpe has written since has matched its impact, but his latest novel, about the disappearance of a troubled 14-year-old girl from a Lincoln council estate, “should run it close”. An intricate “tapestry” focusing on people who knew the girl, Missing Fay blends “laugh-out-loud satire” with acute realism. “Superb on many levels,” it should restore Thorpe to “prominence”.

Thorpe is that rare writer who can magically disappear, leaving his characters to “speak for themselves”, said Melissa Katsoulis in The Times. In a book full of memorable personalities, the “standout” is “sexed-up” Sheena, who runs a clothing boutique and “fantasises about the other shopkeepers in her pretty cobbled street”. Although Missing Fay is partly a thriller, Fay’s whereabouts aren’t ultimately its “point”. Instead, this is an “unforgettable” book about ordinary life, and the “small steps that people take each day to get where they want to be”.